An Interview with Lucy Bailey
Posted Under: Africa,Film,Interviews,Racism/Fascism
The Third Estate catches up with Lucy Bailey, director of the Oscar-nominated Mugabe and the White African
It may have been pipped to the post at the Oscars last night, but ‘Mugabe and the White African’ scooped Best Documentary at the British Independent Film Awards and was shortlisted for the award of Outstanding Debut Film at the Baftas. Arguably the most compelling British Documentary of the last year, The Third Estate caught up with director Lucy Bailey.
The film follows the story of Mike and Ben, two white Zimbabwean farmers who successfully took Mugabe to SADC (Southern African Democratic Community) Court in the face of horrendous obstacles.
Later this week we’ll be reviewing the film ― still on at some London cinemas ― as well taking a look at three very different films about South Africa in their momentous World Cup Year: ‘Beyond the Rainbow’, ‘Have you Heard from Johannesburg? The Bottom Line’ and Clint Eastwood’s Oscar nominated ‘Invictus’, a story about the greatest sport on earth and some politician.
But first our exclusive interview recorded in December 2009.
The Third Estate: Since the film was made what’s been happening in Zimbabwe? How are Mike and Ben?
Lucy Bailey: At the end of August, beginning of September the farm was burnt down. At moment the family are staying with friends in Harare. The thugs are still on the farm, they’ve disrupted the water supplies. In one sense they’ve lost everything, as have all the farm workers. They’re trying to get the linen factory running but it’s a real struggle for them. Ben is trying to get Outreach, to get national governments to help the SADC tribunal, that’s almost become a full time job for them. Mike is not well at all, he’s in a wheelchair now, he has some brain damage from the beating. He is definitely not the man in the film which is very sad.
In terms of the wider country there has been more in the news in the last few days. The coalition government between the MDC and Zanu PF basically isn’t working with lots of Morgan Tsvangari’s men being arrested, ministers unable to take up their positions. He’s Prime Minster on paper but in reality has no power. He has no access to the army or the police. Violence throughout the country is racking up. There are going to be more rows and political violence on the ground, it’s not looking good.
The Third Estate: Have British politicians done enough over the last few years? Is there anything you’d want to say to them?
Lucy Bailey: In our opinion it’s very difficult for the British Government. Mugabe plays the colonialist card on people, he makes out we are neo-colonialists interfering with his affairs. It’s difficult position but at the same time I don’t think they are doing enough. They’re scared of being called colonialists. Nevertheless the key remains the SADC countries.
The court was an African court, a black court. Africa needs to get its own house in order and other African countries need to say, ‘No we’re not having this. We need to take this new human rights court seriously and we’re going to sort Zimbabwe out.’ But the US and UK have a part to play. It would not be good if sanctions were lifted. Our government needs to make clear it will not work with a regime that works in a way Mugabe’s regime does.
The Third Estate: The title comes from something Ben says―that you can’t have a ‘White African’. Is this a problem that you see extending beyond Zimbabwe and across the continent? Is it intended as a warning on a larger front?
Lucy Bailey: We feel race does underlie a lot of what goes on in Africa, but the crux of the film is about human rights, the rule of law and democracy. There are other leaders in Africa who may view white Africans as Mugabe does but there are other leaders at the opposite end of that spectrum. We want to see Africa unite and put democracy and human rights ahead of anything else.
The Third Estate: There’s one particular moment in the film which is very striking, in fact quite frightening, when a Zanu PF Minister arrives to take over Ben’s farm. What’s going on at that point?
Lucy Bailey: It’s a scene where one of the Zanu PF members is at the farm. Ben had come back to find Tomado, he’s the son of Minister Chanarera, a minister in Mugabe’s government. Essentially it’s just a conversation between them. Tomada spells out the whole argument from their perspective. As if he were Mugabe’s spokesman he claims land seizure is for redistribution to the poor black majority. Ben asks why he is here, ministers aren’t the poor black majority. By the end his arguments are undermined. It’s a very telling scene.
The Third Estate: What would you say to someone who sees the film and feels moved to act?
Lucy Bailey: People need to keep pressure on their governments. Write to your MP, say that you want the situation in Zimbabwe to be taken seriously. Its very hard to do much more than this. We’re trying to attract outreach with this film. If this film can get to the right political leaders in the SADC countries, the US and the UK. The film gets a message through in the way a news story doesn’t, especially in relation to a SADC tribunal. People don’t know about it or realise how key it could be.
The Third Estate: Have you ever had to choose between a film’s story arc and a political message? Would you for example alter the chronology to build tension or do you let the facts speak for themselves?
Lucy Bailey: We let the facts speak for themselves. We came to the film with no political agenda whatsoever. With no ties to white farmers in Zimbabwe at all. We were interested in this story, one man takes on a tyrant, who happens to be a tyrant. When we began we thought the film would be done and dusted in a month. We had no idea how the court case would be wrapped up in the politics of the election. They became interwoven. It made the film far more interesting. The events were not in any way manipulated. The structure of the film follows from what happened.
The Third Estate: I spent a few months in Zimbabwe just over a decade ago and I remember there being quite a lot of― you’d probably call it casual racism―among the white community. Did you find this at all? Or is it something that’s gone now?
Lucy Bailey: Certainly when we were there filming we didn’t come across any of that kind of attitude, certainly not with our farming families. When we were there, Zimbabwe was completely gripped by this climate of fear. And that wasn’t a black or white thing; it was whites and blacks together gripped by fear about this regime. That dominated everything else.
The Third Estate: I was struck by the fact that both families seemed deeply religious. Do you think that played a part in their determination to stay?
Lucy Bailey: Without doubt it would be hard to see how they were doing what they were doing. Their faith was the power behind them and still is. It is everything to them. There’s a line in the film where Andrew says everything else has been taken away from them. There is no law and order, there is nothing else to believe in, in Zimbabwe. So faith has become really important. It underpinned everything they were able to do, their courage.
We have been trying to get a third party partner. But it has been hard to get big organisation on board and NGOs to help this film make a difference. We made a promise to Ben and Mike that we would try to get the film to make a difference, documentary films can be very powerful. Films can be a call to action. There is still a total press ban and that’s why this film is so important. That is unique, as is the moment when the Zimbabwean government walk out of an international court before the judgement. This story needs to be told, Ben and Mike aren’t simply fighting for themselves, they’re fighting for everyone in Zimbabwe.
Things are stepping up. This year there will be another election. There is already increasing violence, oppositions supporters are being attacked, child soldiers are being trained. It’s a critical time.
www.mugabeandthewhiteafrican.com
Reader Comments
While on the subject – available until Thursday free on BBC I-Player is another documentary on Zimbabwe – ‘Zimbabwe’s Forgotten Children’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00r5ww9/Zimbabwes_Forgotten_Children/?from=r
excellent interview – but it should be said that the general idea of land reform – even though itis being done in a horrible and unprogressive manner – is fundamentally right. People do not have the right to vast land holdings. I only wish the land was actually being redistributed to those who worked it.
“Mugabe And The White African” is not a documentary, but a propaganda piece. These people want their massive estates back, and that is not going to happen.
Lucy Bailey believes that the west is not interfering in Zimbabwe because ‘they are afraid of being called colonialists’. Message to Lucy Bailey – they ARE colonialists, and they are interfering in Zimbabwe. They are funding and training the parliamentary opposition, the MDC, who not accidentally are also economic neoliberals. It is Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine in action.
They have economic sanctions against the government and economy, which are listed in the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2001 (S.494), specifically Section 4 C, titled “Multilateral Finance Restriction”.
(Google: zimbabwe democracy economic recovery act 2001 govtrack)
This has put the government of Zimbabwe on a credit freeze since 2002, when this credit freeze made the trade surplus of $322 million in 2001 collapse into a trade deficit of $18 million in 2002.
To quote the words of former Reagan Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Chester Crocker, “To separate the people of Zimbabwe from ZANU-PF, we have to make their economy scream, and I hope you senators have the stomach for what you have to do.”
Economic sanctions destroyed the Zimbabwean currency – not land reform, not cronyism, not corruption, not lack of democracy. Economic sanctions imposed by the Bush Administration, and nothing else. These sanctions forced the Zimbabwean government to operate on a cash only basis, which led to hyperinflation with predictable damage to the real economy. By the way, the MDC helped to draw up those sanctions, to maximize damage to the Zimbabwean economy.
Now as to the documentary itself. It is a propaganda piece, because it is full of conceit. The Freeths, unlike most other Rhodesians, a) bought their land b) from the government c) after independence.
If this is true, it is highly uncharacteristic of how land was acquired in Zimbabwe. Most land was acquired by 1965 from the BSAC which took it from Africans at gunpoint and with great bloodshed (Bulawayo literally means ‘the place of slaughter’), or during UDI, as late as 1973. Nearly 50% of the country thus came into the hands of less than the 1% of the population which was white. To work the farms and ensure that no one would lay claim to the land, Africans from around the region were allowed to work off their colonial hut tax (a tax on existence, not on income) on these estates, making even most farm workers today foreigners on the land, and providing the ‘farmers’ with unpaid labor. This is why so little land has gone to the farm workers – many of them are foreigners.
Who has received the land? Another conceit is that the land in this documentary is being taken by the son of a minister. According to the FAO, over 320,000 families (well over a million people) have benefited from farms. That is a lot of ‘friends and cronies of Mugabe’, as the rhodesians would like to phrase it.
(Google: “Agricultural land utilization” fao.org)
The table at the bottom of the page lists the land recipients:
159,985 Old Resettlement
145,000 A1
15,540 A2
(Total: 320,525)
That are a lot of ‘friens and cronies’, President Mugabe must be a very popular man. (He is, by the way. After all, it was the ZANU-PF which brought Zimbabwe into independent existence, created the lowest illiteracy levels in Africa, and successfully redistributed the land stolen under colonialism.)
On the same page, “Table 1: Zimbabwe – Key economic indicators, 2000-2007″, notice the effect of economic sanctions in 2002, the year ZDERA came into force. The trade surplus of $322 million collapsed into a trade deficit of $18 million the year ZDERA froze the Zimbabwean government’s credit lines.
I don’t think economic sanctions, their effects, or who helped to draw them up were ever mentioned in “Mugabe And The White African”, were they?
Lastly, it is very difficult to sell Zimbabwe as a tyranny, when only hear from the parliamentary oppsition (the MDC) and their side of the story. Zimbabwe has not missed an election since independence, President Mugabe has never declared himself ‘president for life’, there is universal suffrage, and a rather loud (and foreign funded) opposition press.
If this would be enough to institute sanctions or even invade – why is this not the case with REAL dictatorships? Ivory Coast, Nigeria, even Saudi Arabia. Or is it because President Mugabe redistributed 35,000 ha of the 117,000 ha Oppenheimer Family Debshan ranch? Let’s face it, the only thing that differentiates Zimbabwe from any other countries is their land redistribution policy.
“Mugabe and the White African” is certainly not about two white Zimbabwean farmers, they are no more farmers than they are Zimbabwean.
I doubt very much if your readers would still sympathise with this family, Mike Campbell and his son-in-law, Ben Freeth after watching them online.
Mike Campbell and Ben Freeth show they real colours in their own series on youtube particularly the “interview” of Mike Campbell where he tells it like he sees it “if they want to eat they need to have white farmers”:
Zimbabwe White farmers (Pt 4&5)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sbfhrr2NyH4
The land was grabbed by Mike Campbell, a South African army captain, who came to Zimbabwe from South Africa in 1974, in the middle of the guerrilla war against the black majority, just four years before the infamous white supremacist Ian Smith unilaterally yielded to international pressure to end white minority rule. Original Rhodesian white farmers have now all left or have complied with the land reform, Mike Campbell won’t.
Ben Freeth portrays himself as a victim of racial attacks but do not say where he and his family really comes from. Ben Freeth is the son of a British Empire military officer, both are men from the past, from another century, when people like Ben and his father came straight from the British establishment to rule the world.
Did the two directors Andrew Thompson and Lucy Bailey knew they were being directed by Ben Freeth and Mike Campbell, I can’t believe they are that naive.
@MRK “The Freeths, unlike most other Rhodesians, a) bought their land b) from the government c) after independence.
If this is true, it is highly uncharacteristic of how land was acquired in Zimbabwe. ”
You call things propagandist yet you step around the fact of when his land was purchased and go on your pre-independence tirade. Well what if his land was purchased fairly after independence, what then is it ok to go after him because of his skin color?
You can spout all the statistics you want but in case you missed it Mugabe is a dictator and well that means facts/statistics are most likely fabricated to the liking of their dictator. After all he manipulates even the counting of votes. That dossier presented in the film is very damning, showing who these “landless” new farm owners really are all of Mogabe’s elites. No wrongs are being righted but instead an exchange of elites to non-white and the poor will stay where they are. You sound like a government shill how you defend Mugabe, maybe you are. The elections in Zimbabwe are rigged, and yes he does kill people that opposed him to effectively. He IS A DICTATOR!! Just ask the people of Matabeleland.
The land was not purchased fairly because it was not purchased after independence making the plea of Campbell and Freeth to keep it in white hands unjustified. This is not up to Campbell or Freeth to decide who should be the next landowners, case closed.
James,
“Well what if his land was purchased fairly after independence, what then is it ok to go after him because of his skin color?”
Without characterizing your post the way you ‘characterized’ my post, what do you mean, ‘if’?
Take a good look at the land distribution map of 1965, the year Southern Rhodesia illegally broke away to formed Rhodesia, and you will see that nearly 50% of the country of Rhodesia was in designated Whites Only. Even though there were only 4,500 of them, and the population of Zimbabwe is 12,000,000.
This did not change until the year 2000. Now what is your proof that the Freeths bought land from the Zimbabwean government post-1980, and not the Rhodesian government pre-1980?
Land was stolen from Africans beginning in 1890, but the last land was stolen as late as 1973.
The Freeths are a bunch of liars, just like the rest of their kin, and will say anything to get their giant estates back.
” You can spout all the statistics you want but in case you missed it Mugabe is a dictator and well that means facts/statistics are most likely fabricated to the liking of their dictator. ”
There is no dictatorship in Zimbabwe. There are elections every 5 years, the opposition party can stand for parliament and they do, there is a free press, there is a judiciary that frequently finds against the government.
Do you think that the MDC would have even been allowed to run for parliament in apartheid South Africa? The ANC was a banned organisation. Non-whites were not allowed an equal say in the government, even though they made up 90% of the people – just like they were not in Rhodesia. And you are faulting Zimbabwe for a lack of democracy? Is the MDC a banned organisation? Is Morgan Tsvangirai a banned person? Or is he the prime minister now?
Your criticism of Zimbabwe and of President Mugabe show the lack of humility that is so characteristic of your ilk. The truth is that you’re spoiled rotten, and want things to continue after independence the way they were before independence, when most Zimbabweans were living on reservations (Native Reserves) in the low rainfall areas. And you talk about dictatorship.
Your MDC party, in collusion with foreign governments, tried to destroy the Zimbabwean economy through economic sanctions. They also called for a military invasion, which would have gotten tens of thousands of Zimbabweans killed. All to reinstate white rule. They should be in prison, many of them should have been hanged for treason. And yet, they are in government. And you complain about a ‘lack of democracy’.
Those 39,000 people who died in the cholera epidemic, died because they country and local councils were unable to import water purification chemicals. Those deaths are on the heads of the MDC.